Golf Balls: Beware The Wrath Of Rabid Fans

HUMOR

April 18, 1995|By Dave Barry

It's a glorious day in Miami, and I'm standing in a semicircle of maybe 500 people on a carpet of lush, sweet-smelling, green-glinting grass, the kind that makes you want to get naked and roll around on your back like a dog.

But the people around me are not doing that. They're solemn, like a church congregation, except that a lot of them are smoking cigars. They're staring at figures way off in the distance. I'm staring, too, but I can't make out what the figures are doing.

Suddenly the crowd murmurs, and 500 heads jerk skyward in unison. I still can't see anything. The crowd holds its breath, waiting, waiting, and then suddenly, plop.

A little white ball falls from the sky, lands in the middle of the semicircle and starts rolling. Immediately the crowd members are shouting at it angrily.

''Bite!'' they shout, spewing saliva and cigar flecks. ''Bite!'' This is how they tell the ball they want it to stop rolling.

The ball, apparently fearing for its life, stops. The crowd members cheer wildly. They're acting as though the arrival of this ball is the highlight of their lives.

Which maybe it is. These are, after all, golf fans. And this ball was hit by - Jack Nicklaus.

This exciting moment in sports occurred at the Doral-Ryder Open golf tournament, an event on the professional golf tour wherein the top golfers gather together to see who can take the longest amount of time to hit the ball.

I don't know about you, but when I play golf - which I have done a total of three times in my life - I don't waste time. I just grab a club, stride to the ball, take a swing, then check to see if the ball has moved. If it hasn't, I take another swing, repeating this process as necessary until the ball is gone, which is my cue to get out another ball, because I know from experience that I will never find the first one. I keep this up until there are no balls left, which is my cue to locate the part of the golfing facility where they sell beer. In other words, I play an exciting, nonstop-action brand of golf that would be ideal for spectators, except for the fact that most of them would be killed within minutes.

Your professional golfer does not even think about hitting a ball until he has conducted a geological and meteorological survey of the situation - circling the ball as though it were a terrorist device, checking it out from every angle, squatting and squinting, checking the wind, taking soil samples, analyzing satellite photographs, testing the area for traces of O.J. Simpson's DNA, etc. Your professional golfer takes longer to line up a six-foot putt than Toyota takes to turn iron ore into a Corolla.

I know that it may sound boring to watch grown men squat for minutes on end, but when you see a tournament in person - when you're actually watching these world-class golfers line up their shots - it is in fact unbelievably boring. At least it was for me. I would rank it, as a spectator sport, with transmission repair.

''Hit the ball, already!'' is what I wanted to shout at Jack Nicklaus, but I did not. The crowd would have turned on me, and my body would have been found later buried in a sand trap, covered with cigar burns. These fans worship the golfers, and they seem to be fascinated by the squatting and squinting. The more time that passed with nothing happening, the more excited the fans became, until finally, when Jack got ready to take the extreme step of hitting the ball, everybody was crazy with anticipation, although nobody was making a peep, because putting is a technical activity that - unlike brain surgery - must be performed in silence.

And so, amid an atmosphere of tension comparable to that of a space shuttle launch, Jack drew back his putter and gently tapped the ball. ''Get in the hole!'' the crowd screamed at the ball.

The ball did not go in the hole. World-class golfers miss a surprising number of putts. Too much squatting, if you ask me.

''No!'' shouted the crowd. Some men seemed to be near tears; some were cursing openly. These people were furious at the ball. They did not blame Jack. Jack worked hard to line up this putt, and here this idiot ball let him down.

But Jack was magnanimous. He tapped the ball in, and the fans applauded wildly.

When Jack had acknowledged the applause, the next world-class golfer, John Daly, began considering the many complex factors involved in his putt, which he will probably be ready to attempt no later than June. Let me know if he makes it. I'll be in the grass just beyond the refreshment area, rolling around like a dog.